My So-Called Fangirl Life

Cruise 2017

10/19/17 - 10/23/17

New Orleans to Cozumel, Mexico

Carnival Triumph

I wasn't super thrilled about going back to Cozumel. But it didn't matter the destination. I was gonna get on that boat. Traci and I actually made a friend from the previous year's cruise, Mandy, via another mutual friend. It's not often that we find someone who we actually want to hang out with, but Mandy fit the criteria. (Haha) So the three of us decided to room together.

At the time of booking, I was at the emergency vet with one of my dogs because she was pooping copious amounts of blood. Story of my life, y'all. But Traci and Mandy were able to take care of it. And my fur baby ended up being okay, so it all worked out.

Themes for the nightly lido parties were announced several months in advance, which was very unusual, but nice. Lucky for my budget, I was able to recycle previous outfits and use clothes that I already had. It's really fun to go all out and come up with elaborate outfits, but it's also a hassle and more crap to pack. So I like keeping it simple.

Traci received a text regarding Donnie's after parties about a week and a half before the cruise. (See NKOTB The Total Package Tour - Nashville for how that came about, if you want.) We were shocked that they actually followed up, especially since Traci was told to find Corey on the boat to get our bracelets. The problem, though, was that she was instructed to forward them her info, as well as the info of her plus one. Plus one? But there were three of us in our cabin. Yikes.

It was awkward bringing up the fact that they were only going to give us two passes, but even worse, we were sad about it. But Mandy, being the super cool, laid back gal that she is, insisted that we don't worry about it. We figured we could probably get her in anyway, as we'd heard all you have to do is ask, which is exactly what Traci did to get us invited. So we left it at that and figured we'd deal with it when the time came.

We always begin our transition from chill, casual fan mode to fangirl mode about two weeks before or trips. I guess it's pretty normal to get excited about a trip as it gets closer. Honestly, though, we mostly get excited about all the food we're going to eat. Not even lying.

One of the first plans we made was to make a stop at this doughnut shop in Nashville when we met up the night before flying out to New Orleans. I'm not even embarrassed to say that we spent $20 on donuts. And, yes, they were the best doughnuts I've ever put in my mouth. Totally worth it.

We had dinner at some restaurant in the mall that I don't remember the name of, but they had this bread that was to die for. Then we spent a couple of hours at Dave and Buster's playing video games. And that was the extent of our brief time in Nashville before our big adventure began.

Our flight to New Orleans was quick and smooth, though we were one of the last to board. I love Southwest, but I'm not a fan of not having assigned seats. We were afraid that we weren't going to be able to sit together, but I spotted a guy sitting in an isle seat, and the two seats beside him were empty, so we sat with him. Luckily, he was very nice and got a kick out of the fact that we were headed to a cruise with NKOTB. He was a little talkative, but once we took off, he went to sleep. He was invading Traci's personal space as he dozed, but it was cool. Traci had some free drink vouchers, so we had some Baileys and coffee. And by the time we landed, we were both sweating and slightly giddy.

Mandy's flight landed just a few minutes before ours, so we met her at the baggage claim area, where we saw Matt Bellassi's doppleganger. If hadn't tweeted that he was somewhere else, we would've sworn it was him. Then we made our way to our hotel. The first thing we did was go to a restaurant that Mandy loved. Everything we ordered was unbelievably delicious.